21ST CENTURY OPTICS: A DAY FROM THE LIFE OF ‘OPTICS JOHN’
The life of John, a lighting fixture engineer isn’t easy. It’s though work for him to keep the companies product sellable. It’s rather frustrating that during the product development cycle, continuously better LED chips arrive on stage. So before John’s new fixture is ready, it already need an update. Therefore, it’s quite time consuming for his company to invest in expensive molds and volumes of molded parts.
Obsolescence is causing a huge waste, straining both environment as balance sheets. And Johns boss is not happy about that. In many cases, John is forced to use standard parts and lenses. So are his competitors. The result is that many fixtures look the same. And, there are no attractive options to customize the lighting for a project or application.
21st Century Optics
Luckily for John, now in the 21st Century according to The Economist, the Third Industrial Revolution has started. In the meantime, we’ve all heard about 3d printing, right? Well, John did. Basically, you have a material. It goes into a printer. This printer heats and melts the material, and deposits it in layers. This way, it can build what you tell it to build. On demand. So basically, now Johns computer can create cheap and flexible inventory.
3D printing – How it Works
There are a lot of different 3D printers. Some of them can print plastic, others can print metals, or even ceramics. But none of them can do what LUXeXceL can do! And this is where it get’s interesting for John! LUXeXceL offerst 3D printed optics. The developed a unique 3D printing process, using transparent optical material to making lenses and optical components. Like LED lenses, a magifying glass or even a pair of real functioning glasses. LUXeXceL’s process lets droplets flow into each other before they are cured, with UV light creating a 100% smooth and transparent product. And… there is no need to post-process the products by polishing, coloring or grinding them.
Use of Printed Optics
So what are these optics used for? Well, they can be found in a lot of products. The most common ones would be an average lamp, which has an optical component to direct the light. There are optics in your flashlight, in your reading light, in the train, in streetlights, refrigorators and even in the buttons of your coffee machine. John is happy, because now his lenses can be made digitally and super-fast. Without the need to buy him a minumum order value and volumes of thousands of components.
Digital – Super Fast – Flexible
With 3D printed optics, there are no minimum order quantities. If John only needs 50 pieces, he can simply order 50 pieces. This is saving him a lot of money and time. Now Johns process to develop and test the lens becomes easy. All he need is a CAD file of the design. This file is directly loaded in the printer. If he wants to change something, he can simply change his design and have it printed again. No expensive investments in molds or other tools are needed, again saving Johns’ company money. 3D printed optics now allows John to do his development easier, faster and better. He now even can help customers with designing fixtures with easy interchangeable lenses, so that for every lighting project can provide a perfect light distribution with ease. Don’t waste your time, money and our environment, have your optics 3D printed today!
‘Meet Optics John‘
Now, please take a minute to listen to the story of Optical Designer ‘John’ and how printed optics changed his life. He and his colleagues are doing a great job on digitizing the optics manufacturing.
More about ‘John’ and the Future of Printed optics at LUXeXceL’s website. The Future of Optics starts today!
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The LUXeXceL Story – as told by LUXeXceL CEO Richard van de Vrie
3D printing of Illumination Optics – Optical quality surfaces – no post-processing
3D printed (LED) Optics by LUXeXceL – Optics directly from the printer with only one step from CAD to optic
LUXeXceL The Movie – 3D Printed Optics: a Day from the Life of ‘John’
